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    Suspect arrested after break-in at Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s home

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    Police in Los Angeles arrested a suspect following a break-in at the home of the city’s mayor, the former Democratic representative Karen Bass, on Sunday morning, officials said.Bass and her family were not harmed when a man entered Getty House, the LA mayor’s official residence on Irving Boulevard, while they were home.The Los Angeles police department identified the suspect as Ephraim Hunter. The 29-year-old’s motives are still under investigation.“Around 6.40am this morning an individual smashed a window to gain entry into the Getty House while occupied,” the Los Angeles police department said in a statement on social media, adding that police responded and took a suspect into custody without incident.“Mayor Bass and her family were not injured and are safe. The mayor is grateful to LAPD for responding and arresting the suspect,” her office said in a statement.This was the second time Bass has faced a home break-in. In September 2022, while she served in the US House of Representatives and ran for mayor, two men were accused of breaking into her residence at the time in Baldwin Vista and stealing two handguns. Two months later, Bass defeated the billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and became the first woman and second Black person to run Los Angeles.The intrusion comes the same week as a sentence is expected in the case of David DePape forattacking Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, in October 2022. DePape has been convicted of breaking into the couple’s home in San Francisco and attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer, breaking his skull. DePape linked his attack to a false pro-Trump conspiracy theory.Top US officials have faced a rise in attacks and violent threats, especially since the January 6 insurrection in 2021 by extremist supporters of Donald Trump intent on overturning his defeat by Joe Biden in the presidential election.Targets have spanned the political divide. A California man awaits trial on charges that he plotted to kill the supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, at his Maryland home.
    The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Hunter Biden asks Los Angeles judge to toss out $1.4m tax evasion case

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      Attorneys representing Hunter Biden asked a US judge in Los Angeles to dismiss the criminal case accusing him of evading $1.4m in taxes, arguing that prosecutors bowed to political pressure from Republican lawmakers investigating his father, Joe Biden.Hunter’s lawyers appeared before the US district judge Mark Scarsi in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday to press several legal challenges to the charges, including an argument that he was selectively targeted by prosecutors in response to Republican criticism. The 54-year-old was not present in the courtroom.Hunter has pleaded not guilty to failing to pay $1.4m in taxes between 2016 and 2019, while spending millions of dollars on drugs, escorts, exotic cars and other big-ticket items. His lawyer has said he paid back the money in full.US district judge Mark Scarsi appeared to give a skeptical reception to dismissal request. At the hearing, Scarsi asked whether Hunter’s lawyers had any evidence that prosecutors had caved to pressure from Republicans, other than the fact that they filed charges after months of accusations by Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump that he had been treated leniently.“Do you have any evidence other than the timeline?” Scarsi asked Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell.Lowell acknowledged that “it’s a timeline, but it’s a juicy timeline.”Scarsi also voiced skepticism about Hunter’s defense team’s argument that prosecutors had been pressured by two Internal Revenue Service agents who went public last year with information about his tax returns.“How are they responsible for what’s in the indictment?” Scarsi asked.“I can’t make the connection that that’s why that happened,” Lowell said, later adding that: “It was those two agents that started the dominoes.”Leo Wise, one of the prosecutors on the case, said it was “patently absurd” that the agents had influenced prosecutors.The trial of the president’s youngest son is due to start in June, a few months before Americans vote in a November presidential election that looks set to be a close and deeply divisive contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.Hunter also faces a separate criminal case in federal court in Delaware over his alleged purchase of a handgun while he was using illegal drugs. He has pleaded not guilty and made similar arguments to dismiss the charges in that case.The special counsel David Weiss, who brought both cases, has accused Hunter Biden’s legal team of spreading “conspiracy theories” about the prosecution. He has said the justice department would not act at the direction of Republican lawmakers, who are pursuing an impeachment investigation into whether Joe Biden profited from his son’s activities. The inquiry has turned up no evidence that the president personally benefited.Hunter is also seeking to toss out the charges by arguing that Weiss, who has investigated him since 2019, was improperly appointed special counsel.Hunter’s defense team has also argued that the case is barred by an earlier plea deal the president’s son struck with prosecutors. The deal collapsed under questioning from a federal judge last year. Prosecutors have said it never took effect. More

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      California’s Orange county was once a conservative bastion. Can it swing the balance of the US House in 2024?

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      In the battle between Democrats and Republicans for control of the US House of Representatives, one region could hold the key to victory – Orange county, California’s historically conservative heartland.For decades, the region – perhaps most famously described by Ronald Reagan as the place “where the good Republicans go before they die” – was a Republican stronghold and a hotbed for radical conservatives.But the county has undergone dramatic changes both politically and demographically. The region has shifted from the largely white center of conservative politics in California to a far more diverse place and one of the few true purple counties in the US, the effects of which have reverberated nationally.Today the county of 3.1 million people is home to some of the most competitive congressional elections in the US. Four of Orange county’s six congressional districts, including the seat vacated by congresswoman Katie Porter as she runs for the Senate, are ranked among the most competitive races, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report.Recent polling from UC Irvine suggests that Asian Americans and Latino voters could play a key role in the upcoming races as potential swing voters. Orange county is far less white than it once was and its growing diversity has helped fuel its political transformation, said Jon Gould, who launched the poll.It’s a stark contrast to years past when Asian Americans were an afterthought in county political campaigns, said Andrew Ji, the managing director of the Orange county office for Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “In certain regions where there’s tight races, Asian Americans are gonna be the swing voting bloc,” Ji said.Orange county was conservative even for conservatives, a place that embraced the John Birch Society, a far-right political group that opposed the civil rights movement and spread conspiracy theories that Republican president Dwight Eisenhower was a communist.The region was overwhelmingly Republican into the 1990s, said Jim Newton, a UCLA lecturer and veteran journalist who covered the region. Demographic trends suggested it wouldn’t remain so forever, he said, but the political shift came far sooner than anticipated.In 1990, Orange county was 65% white while Latinos comprised 23% of the population and Asian Americans 10%, according to the US census. By 2020, Latinos accounted for 34% of county residents, the Asian American population climbed to 22% and white people made up 37% of the population.Greater ethnic and racial diversity fueled change, but other demographic changes played a role too, said Gould, the dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. There’s been a rise in college-educated county residents – and there is a link between higher education and less extreme Republicans, he said.“When I was younger this was the home of the John Birch Society, this was … the place Ronald Reagan was king,” said Gould. “The transformation has been remarkable.”The changes in the political landscape were evident in 2016, when Orange county favored a Democrat for president for the first time in nearly a century – giving more votes to Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. In 2018, Democrats flipped four seats and the county sent an entirely blue delegation to Congress.The shifting political winds came as California as a whole was becoming more blue, and the far-right shift in the Republican party and Donald Trump alienated voters, particularly suburban women.View image in fullscreenThe GOP’s association with downplaying or outright denying the climate crisis also didn’t play well in a state where people take the environment seriously, Newton, the UCLA lecturer, argues.“The fact that we talk about Orange county as potentially a swing place is really bad news for Republicans,” Newton said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocratic voters have a slight lead in the county today, but it remains firmly purple. Republicans won two House seats back from Democrats in 2020 with the election of Young Kim and Michelle Steel – two of the first Korean American women to serve in Congress.Purple counties – where congressional and presidential contests are truly competitive – are increasingly rare, said Gould, who recently conducted a poll of county voters.The poll published by UC Irvine suggests that the county will swing left in this year’s election due to independent and “modestly partisan Republicans”. The latter group has become a political anomaly in a sharply divided America, but could play a strong role in the races in the region. That demographic is less supportive of Trump, does not dislike Biden as much as other Republicans and is generally more diverse, Gould noted.“They tend to be more educated, wealthier and compared to the strongly attached Republicans, they are much less likely to be white,” he said. “That is where there is a Latino and Asian group of modestly attached Republicans who may very well have a strong influence on the presidential race and congressional races in 2024.”They may not necessarily vote for Democrats, he said, and the question is whether they will vote, and if so will they vote for Republicans in every race.The outcome of the congressional races could have major implications nationally and determine which party controls the House.“If Democrats can’t keep this seat, they have no hope of winning the House majority, because demographically this is exactly the type of district that is coming into the Democrats’ coalition,” David Wasserman, with the Cook Political Report, said of Porter’s seat in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.For Ji, the election is another sign of how much has changed in Orange county and there is an excitement to see it transform from a mono-political white place, into somewhere known for diversity – ethnically and politically.“I’m very excited for the future of Orange county,” Ji said. “We are pivotal. We can be seen as an inflection point and we are very important nationally in the way we vote.” More

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      Lots of cash. First in the polls. California’s Senate race is Adam Schiff’s to lose

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      Adam Schiff looked like a front-runner when he first announced he was running for the US Senate more than a year ago, and he hasn’t stopped looking like one since.The California congressman from Los Angeles, best known for his withering critiques of Donald Trump and the threat the former president poses to US democracy, hasn’t always been able to match the charisma of his two leading Democratic rivals, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. His continuing support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, broadly in line with the Biden administration’s, has created divisions among his constituents and opened up one of the few significant policy differences in the race.But as the clock ticks down to the 5 March primary, that has yet to make an appreciable difference in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat. Schiff has out-raised his opponents by significant margins, allowing him to bombard the airwaves with campaign ads. He has raked in the lion’s share of endorsements from fellow party members, labor unions, newspapers and others.Opinion polls long had him leading, narrowly, but now suggest he may be breaking away from the rest of the pack. The most recent surveys show Schiff at least five points ahead of his competitors. Porter and Republican Steve Garvey are neck-and-neck for second place – though it’s highly unlikely the former baseball star would prevail in the general election in November given Democrats’ dominance in the state. Lee lags behind.In an election year when many voters say they fear for the future of the republic, a contest in a reliably blue state featuring three generally well-regarded Democratic members of Congress (plus one near-unelectable Republican neophyte) can seem a bit of a luxury.But the pressure cooker dynamics of national politics have arguably played into Schiff’s hands. As the leading voice on the first of Trump’s two impeachments and as a congressional investigator into the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Schiff has won widespread admiration and near-heroic status within his own party.As the Los Angeles Times wrote in endorsing Schiff over what it called his “smart, experienced, savvy” Democratic opponents: “Given the increasingly authoritarian statements from Donald Trump, the possibility he could return to the White House and the Republican Party’s lockstep loyalty to him, the Senate needs Schiff.”Schiff himself has played up his anti-Trump credentials, calling the ex-president “the gravest threat to our democracy” in a recent debate in response to a question about what made him different from his fellow Democrats. And he has only been helped by the obvious loathing he inspires, as Trump and his Republican partisans routinely call him “shifty”, a “lowlife”, and, without evidence, a “stone-cold liar”.View image in fullscreenWhen the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to censure Schiff last June – on the partisan-driven grounds that he had threatened national security and was “undermining our duly elected president” – it proved to be a fundraising boon for Schiff’s Senate campaign that cemented the significant financial advantage he was already enjoying over his rivals.Rick Wilson, a former Republican political operative now working for the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said Schiff had a singular ability to drive Trump Republicans to distraction because of his skill, much of it learned from his pre-congressional experience as a prosecutor, to marshal facts, zero in on what matters and lay out the stakes in clear, persuasive language.“Adam Schiff is one of the people who understood where the bodies were buried,” Wilson said. “He presented a combination of intelligence and wit that gave the Trump people a tremendous amount of heartache … I don’t mean this to be facetious, but they hate smart people. I say, tell me who you hate and I’ll show you who you fear.”Still, the race is about more than Trump, and Schiff has talked a lot about other issues close to the heart of California voters, including homelessness, affordable housing, health care costs and the environment.Since the election has played out largely as a contest among Democrats – with Garvey providing a sideshow more than a serious threat – it also presents voters with questions about the direction they want to set for the party, both in the Golden state and across the country.Feinstein, who died in office last September, was an old-school centrist, and whoever replaces her will hew significantly to her left. Still, in an age of deep partisan polarization, do voters want a pragmatist, as Schiff styles himself, or a firebrand? Someone who falls somewhere in the political middle of his party, like Schiff, or the most progressive voice possible?View image in fullscreenMany voters will remember that, for close to 30 years, California had two female senators – first Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who overlapped from 1993 to 2017, then Feinstein and Kamala Harris, who overlapped until Harris became vice-president in 2021. Are they ready to revert to two male ones – Alex Padilla and, potentially, Schiff?Democratic voters in California are also consistent in saying that diversity matters, which explains why Gavin Newsom, the state governor, made a point of naming a Black woman, the veteran labor organizer and voting rights activist Laphonza Butler, to complete Feinstein’s term after her death. Butler is not competing to hold on to the seat. Does it matter, then, that Schiff is not only a man, but a white man?“A majority … of Democratic party voters participating in the primary are women and a majority are people of color. So, yeah, these things are on our minds,” said Aimee Allison, a California-based political activist whose group She the People champions progressive Black and Latina women running for office. “This is not just about the politics of representation. For Californians under 35, in particular, it’s about representation, plus life experience, plus the policies a candidate is advocating – all three things.”Allison is supporting Lee, and in her mind the race might look very different if it weren’t for the money and the establishment support that Schiff has been able to rake in.“White guys get more money in politics,” she said. “That doesn’t make Adam Schiff special. It’s just the bias of the system, the bias in the minds of people with money … One of the reasons women of color are defeated in primaries is because existing elected officials weigh in against them, both publicly and behind the scenes. When someone like Nancy Pelosi puts her support behind Schiff, it has huge downstream effects.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchiff’s financial advantage has certainly been significant. As of 31 December, he had outspent all his opponents and still had $35m in cash on hand, more than all the other candidates put together. That financial edge is now playing out on the airwaves, especially in expensive media markets like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where Schiff’s recent campaign ads present Garvey, not Porter or Lee, as his competition. “Two leading candidates for Senate,” the ad begins. “Two very different visions for California.”Since Garvey does not have enough money for his own television ad campaign, this has been widely interpreted as an attempt by the Schiff team to boost the Republican’s candidacy in the hope that he will come in second on 5 March and thus qualify for the general election under California’s top-two primary system.“It’s disappointing that Adam Schiff is playing cynical, anti-democratic political games to avoid a competitive election in November,” an incensed Porter wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Voters deserve better.”This, though, is how politics in California is often played. When Newsom first ran for governor in 2018, his camp ran an ad similarly designed to boost the leading Republican over his closest Democratic rival and attracted similar complaints. With Porter restricted in the number of ads of her own she can afford to run – some of which have boosted a different Republican candidate in an apparent attempt to dilute Garvey’s support – it arguably does not damage Schiff so much as boost the perception that this is his race to lose.View image in fullscreenIndeed, Schiff has run more like an incumbent than a challenger for an open seat, pointing to his record over 23 years in the House and calling himself “an effective leader who can get things done and deliver for California”.While Porter has leaned heavily into her reputation as a populist crusader against corrupt corporate leaders, and Lee has often shown up to debates with cheering fans from her grassroots and union support base, Schiff has sought to make a virtue of his careful manner and calm demeanor by embracing the idea that he is a trusted establishment candidate.At a candidates’ forum last fall, Schiff pointed to his temperament as its own political asset, recounting how a Republican colleague in the House often complained how difficult it was to argue against his progressive positions because “you sound so damn reasonable”.One issue where Schiff has taken criticism is his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza – a position in line with the Biden administration’s, but one decried by many young progressives who have staged demonstrations at party and campaign events and warned the candidates they will be punished at the polls if they do not denounce Israel’s military campaign.Lee argues forcefully that the deaths of more than 29,000 Palestinians have done nothing to enhance Israeli security or to achieve the US policy goal of a two-state solution. Schiff, though, has been unapologetic in his support for Israel. “I don’t see how there could be a lasting peace as long as a terrorist organization is governing Gaza and threatening to attack them over and over and over again,” he said in a debate last week, “nor do I see how there can be a permanent ceasefire while that is true.” In an earlier statement he went further, pinning blame for the high civilian death toll in Gaza on “Hamas’ actions”, and calling on Congress to approve emergency assistance to the Netanyahu government.Polling since 7 October suggests the issue has yet to hurt Schiff or provide any boost to Lee, despite indications that it has alienated many non-white Democratic voters across the country and split the party along generational lines. More than 1 million Jews live in California, and that may help Schiff, who is himself Jewish, gain as much support as he has lost elsewhere.As the primary looms, Schiff is focusing much of his campaigning energy on partisan politics. In a flurry of tweets and television appearances over the past few weeks he has blasted the Republicans for blowing up the bipartisan deal on border security, denounced the GOP’s willingness to flirt with Russian intelligence operatives and ridiculed them for their impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary.His message to voters after the final primary debate on Monday was not about the candidates he’d just sparred with, but about another, more prominent candidate for national office whom he has taken on again and again. “Trump has made me his public enemy No 1,” he declared flatly. “And I wear that as a badge of honor.” More

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      Former congressman Jeff Fortenberry’s conviction reversed by appeals court

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      An appellate court on Tuesday reversed a 2022 federal conviction against former Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry, ruling that the Republican should not have been tried in Los Angeles.Fortenberry was convicted in March 2022 on charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser. He resigned his seat days later after pressure from congressional leaders and Nebraska’s Republican governor.In Tuesday’s ruling, the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit wrote that the trial venue of Los Angeles was improper because Fortenberry made the false statements during interviews with federal agents at his home in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in his lawyer’s office in Washington.“Fortenberry’s convictions are reversed so that he may be retried, if at all, in a proper venue,” the decision said.A federal jury in Los Angeles found the nine-term Republican guilty of concealing information and two counts of making false statements to authorities. He vowed to appeal from the courthouse steps.Fortenberry was charged after denying to the FBI that he was aware he had received illicit funds from Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent.At trial, prosecutors presented recorded phone conversations in which Fortenberry was repeatedly warned that the contributions came from Chagoury. The donations were funneled through three straw men at the 2016 fundraiser in Los Angeles.The case stemmed from an FBI investigation into $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions to four campaigns from Chagoury, who lived in Paris at the time. Chagoury admitted to the crime in 2019 and agreed to pay a $1.8m fine.It was the first trial of a sitting congressman since the Democratic representative Jim Traficant of Ohio was convicted of bribery and other felony charges in 2002.Fortenberry and his wife, Celeste Fortenberry, praised the court’s decision.“We are gratified by the ninth circuit’s decision,” Jeff Fortenberry said in a statement. “Celeste and I would like to thank everyone who has stood by us and supported us with their kindness and friendship.”Representatives from the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles did not have an immediate comment. More

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      Attack on Aipac president’s home in LA investigated as hate crime – reports

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      A protest outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) president’s Los Angeles home is reportedly being investigated as a possible hate crime after social media videos showed demonstrators igniting smoke devices and spattering fake blood.According to reports by the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets, Aipac president Michael Tuchin’s home in the Brentwood section was vandalized Thursday on Thanksgiving by protesters who also pounded pots in the driveway and held up a sign that read: “Fuck your holiday, baby killer.”The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) confirmed it had responded to the block where Tuchin’s house is. The department posted on X – formerly known as Twitter – that protesters “caused a disturbance” weeks after the Israel-Hamas war that erupted in October.“West LA officers responded [and] took crime reports for vandalism/hate crime [and] assault [with a] deadly weapon,” the department added. “Investigations are on-going. No arrests have been made at this time.”The Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, added in a separate post that she has spoken with Tuchin – an attorney by profession – about the “disturbing” case.Bass wrote: “Hate and violence will not be tolerated in our city. LAPD will continue to work with city and business leaders to keep Angelenos safe.”Bass later removed Tuchin’s name from the post, saying it was “for the safety of those involved”. Police said they do not identify the victims of possible crimes and declined to formally identify Tuchin as the target of the demonstrators.Video posted by Sam Yebri, a former Los Angeles city council candidate, showed smoke billowing in the street as people yelled.Yebri said that “pro-Hamas activists committed a terroristic hate crime in Brentwood, throwing smoke bombs at [and] vandalizing the home of the national president of one of America’s leading Jewish organizations”.“This is what happened in Nazi Germany before the ovens and [crematoriums],” Yebri said, clearly referring to the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust during the second world war.A neighbor of Tuchin’s told NBC that when he realized the private property was being attacked by demonstrators he – as a Jew – felt compelled to intervene.“They put red paint on the car, on the driveway, on the windows,” the neighbor said. “They were terrorizing our neighbor.”The neighbor, who declined to be identified, said that during the confrontation he was hit from behind with a steel pole. Police officers called to the scene made the demonstrators march back down the street.On Friday, the police department declared a citywide tactical alert “to ensure sufficient resources to address any incident”. There were more pro-Palestinian protests planned that day.Groups protesting against the war Israel launched in Gaza in response to Hamas’s deadly 7 October attack against Israel have criticized how authorities and media have addressed the protest at the home of Tuchin, who led a successful bankruptcy-related restructuring of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.“Media is in lockstep with LA elected officials & the LAPD to spin this protest as an ‘antisemitic hate crime,’” J-Town Action と Solidarity – which describes itself as a local grassroots collective – wrote on X. J-Town accused news organizations and officials of downplaying Tuchin’s role with Aipac.Los Angeles, home to large populations of Jews and Palestinians, has seen increasing tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.Earlier this month, the parking lot of the iconic Canter’s Deli was defaced with “Free Gaza” and “Israel’s only religion is capitalism”. Similar messages were also scrawled close to a nearby synagogue and condemned by Bass as an “unacceptable rash of hate”. More

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      ‘Almost a troll of the legacy’: Reagan’s spirit looms over Republican debate

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      Tourists posed for photos beside the presidential seal, peered inside the cockpit, studied the nuclear football and gazed at a desk where a “Ronald Reagan” jacket slung over the chair, page of handwritten notes and jelly bean jar made it appear as if the 40th US president could saunter back at any moment.Air Force One is the star attraction at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. But on Wednesday it is competing for attention with a curving Starship Enterprise-style stage set featuring seven lecterns and microphones for the second Republican presidential primary debate.The Reagan library describes this as “the Super Bowl” of Republican debates, against the dramatic backdrop of the Boeing 707 that flew seven presidents and close to the granite gravesite where Reagan was buried in 2004, looking across a majestic valley towards the Pacific Ocean.“As a new field of Republicans make their case to be the next President, the legacy of Ronald Reagan looms larger than ever,” the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, which sustains the library, said in an email statement that will be put to the test at 9pm ET. For there are some who argue that Reagan would no longer recognise a Republican party that now belongs to Donald Trump.“There are no more Reagan Republicans,” said Jason Johnson, a political analyst and professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore. “Having this debate at the Reagan Library is almost a troll of the legacy of actual Republicans in the party because they are no more. The last real Republicans in the party were probably Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The rest of these people are frauds, clowns and sycophants.”Reagan and Donald Trump are the two best US presidents of the past 40 years, according to Republicans surveyed recently by the Pew Research Center (41% said Reagan, who held the office from 1981 to 1989, did the best job while 37% said Trump did). Neither man will be at the two-hour debate – frontrunner Trump is skipping it again – yet both will help to frame it.Several candidates have been straining to drape themselves in Reagan’s political finery. Former vice-president Mike Pence often talks of how he “joined the Reagan revolution and never looked back”, and took his oath with his hand on the Reagan family Bible. This week Pence received the endorsement of five senior Reagan administration officials who praised his stances on limited government, lower taxes, individual freedom, strong defence and abortion restrictions.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has fondly recalled Reagan’s “optimistic, positive revolution” while also approvingly recalling his decision to fire more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981: “He said, you strike, you’re fired.” Scott’s campaign has promoted a quotation from Senator Mike Rounds: “Tim Scott is the closest to Ronald Reagan that you’re going to see.”Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has asserted that it is this generation’s “time for choosing”, a nod to Reagan’s 1964 speech that made him a breakout conservative leader and paved the way for his election as governor of California. In the first debate, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called himself “the only candidate in this race, young or old, black or white, to bring all of those voters along to deliver a Reagan 1980 revolution”.Even Trump has recently begun referencing Reagan as he seeks to navigate the electorally awkward territory of abortion restrictions after the fall of Roe v Wade, stating that “like President Ronald Reagan before me, I support the three exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother”.The Reagan Library and Museum, unabashedly laudatory with little discussion of the former president’s record on race relations or Aids, leaves no doubt as to his status as a political touchstone. It chronicles his rise from small-town Illinois (“Almost everybody knew one another”) to General Electric to Hollywood, where his role as football player George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American earned him the nickname “the Gipper” – and the myth-making was under way.A bumper sticker that says “Win it for the Gipper” features in a display on the 1980 presidential election, as does a campaign poster with the pre-Trump slogan: “Let’s make America great again.” The Reagan revolution was assured when he beat Jimmy Carter by 10 percentage points in the popular vote and took 44 of the 50 states – unthinkable in today’s polarised politics.Visitors see a replica of Reagan’s Oval Office, a display of first lady Nancy Reagan’s fashion and a paean to the trickle-down economics now rejected by Joe Biden as a failed economic philosophy, accompanied by the celebrated Morning in America campaign ad and a piano version of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA – now familiar as Trump’s walk-on song at rallies.There is a gallery devoted to Reagan’s “peace through strength” approach to the cold war and “evil empire” of the Soviet Union, including a replica of the Berlin Wall and statues of Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Among his quotations: “We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.”Jonathan Alter, an author of presidential biographies, said: “Unlike Trump, where it’s all about him, where it’s a cult of personality, with Reagan it was heavily ideological. It was all about trying to restore limited government with a strongly anti-communist foreign policy. So it was cut spending, cut taxes, increase defence. That was their agenda and that became the animating idea of the Republican party.”After he left the presidency, Reagan told the Republican national convention: “Whatever else history may say about me … I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.”There has, many would argue, been a significant shift in tone in the Republican party since then. At last month’s first Republican debate in Milwaukee, Pence insisted: “We’re not looking for a new national identity. The American people are the most faith-filled, freedom-loving, idealistic, hard-working people the world has ever known.”Ramaswamy retorted: “It is not morning in America. We live in a dark moment. And we have to confront the fact that we’re in an internal sort of cold, cultural civil war.”This once unthinkable repudiation of Reagan implied that the 40th president’s “shining city on a hill” has given way to the 45th president’s “American carnage”. Bill Kristol, a founding director of the Defending Democracy Together political group and former Reagan administration official, said: “I talked with someone 10 years ago. He was a prominent person who said, ‘I wonder if the mood of America is changing.’ I said something conventional about Reagan Republicans.”Kristol went on: “He said, ‘I don’t think that stuff would work any more. The country’s getting more and more pessimistic.’ I said, ‘Well, the voters still want to have hope and an upbeat message.’ He said, ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Trump, in the way he’s a good demagogue, saw that. You wouldn’t be penalised for being down. Quite the opposite.”Perhaps the area in which Reaganism is closest to being nothing more than a museum piece is foreign policy. Trump has embraced the old foe, Russia, and called Vladimir Putin a “genius”. He has dragged the party towards “America first” isolationism and anti-interventionism. Ramaswamy has vowed to cut off financial support to Ukraine in its war against Russia.Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman, said: “Reagan believed we were an example for the rest of the world and charged out to help spread freedom around the rest of the world. The fact that the Republican party has become pro-Putin under Trump – Ronnie just wouldn’t understand it. It goes against everything he believes.”Reagan signed a law granting legal status to nearly 3 million immigrants. Walsh added: “This is very much a-build-a-wall-around-America, keep-everybody-out kind of Republican party. Reagan had a lot of flaws … [but] we were the city on the hill and we welcome all who want to come here.”David Prosperi, an assistant press secretary to Reagan, said: “When Ronald Reagan was running for president he said, ‘I didn’t leave the Democratic party. The Democratic party left me.’ I think today he might just say, ‘This Republican party has left me’.”But there is a school of thought that the former film star Reagan and former TV star Trump have more in common than their devotees would like to admit.Reagan’s critics say he cut taxes for the rich and sowed distrust in government. He spun exaggerated yarns about a “Chicago welfare queen” and a “strapping young buck” using food stamps to “buy a T-bone steak”. In a call with President Richard Nixon he referred to African UN delegates as “monkeys”.Reagan launched his 1980 election campaign with a speech lauding “states’ rights” near the site of the notorious Mississippi Burning murders of three civil rights workers – seen by many as a nod to southern states that resented the federal government enforcing civil rights. Once in office, Reagan opposed affirmative action and busing programmes.Kevin Kruse, a history professor at Princeton University, said: “While it’s right to be alarmed by the way in which Trump has moved things into an unprecedented realm, we’d be mistaken to believe this is somehow entirely brand new. I know that the ‘never Trump’ crowd in the Republican party have created this kind of fictitious version of Reagan that was wholly different from Trump. But there are elements of this here.”Reagan arguably tapped into the same populist forces that Trump would later fully unleash. Kruse added: “Reagan, before the presidency, ran for governor of California, where he was very much seen as a backlash candidate, the voice of white resentment. As president, it was much more of a dog whistle approach. Trump is loudly screaming what Reagan said softly with a smile.” More

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      Another bus with dozens of migrants from Texas arrives in Los Angeles

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      Another bus carrying asylum seekers arrived in downtown Los Angeles from a Texas border city early on Saturday, the second such transport in less than three weeks.The bus, which arrived at about 12.40pm at Los Angeles’s Union Station from Brownsville, Texas, held 41 people including 11 children who were with their families, according to a statement from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (Chirla).The busload of people were welcomed by a collective of faith and immigrants’ rights groups and transported to St Anthony’s Croatian Catholic church, where they were given water, food, clothing, medical checkups and initial legal immigration assistance.The office of Los Angeles’ mayor, Karen Bass, was not formally notified but became aware of the bus on Friday, said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, in a statement.The asylum seekers came from Cuba, Belize, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela. According to a statement from Chirla, most of those on the bus are seeking to reunify with family members or sponsors. Six of them need to fly to Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for Chirla.Cabrera said the group “was less stressed and less chaotic than the previous time”, referring to the busload of people who arrived at the same major transit hub on 14 June. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, claimed responsibility for that move in a tweet that read: “Small Texas border towns remain overrun & overwhelmed because Biden refuses to secure the border”.Abbott has not mentioned the latest bus – and an attempt to contact him was not immediately returned – but posted figures in a tweet on Saturday that claimed the Texas national guard and state troopers have “apprehended more than 386,000” asylum seekers. “While Biden ignores the border crisis, Texas is stepping up to fill the gaps he created,” Abbott said.Bass tweeted: “Los Angeles believes in treating everyone with respect and dignity and will continue to do so.”Bass said that after she took office last year, she directed city agencies to begin planning for a possible scenario in which LA “was on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Chirla and our partners in Los Angeles are organized and ready to receive these asylum seekers when they get here,” said Angélica Salas, Chirla’s executive director, in a statement. “If Los Angeles is their last destination, we will ensure this is the place where they get a genuine and humane reception.”Earlier in June, the state of Florida picked up three dozen migrants in Texas and sent them by private jet to California’s capital, catching shelters and aid workers in Sacramento by surprise. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, held Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, responsible for the flights of asylum seekers, which came in two waves, and appeared to threaten to file kidnapping charges after the first incident in which a group of migrants was dumped at a Sacramento church. More

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      Los Angeles councilman faces criminal charges including embezzlement

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      Prosecutors charged a Los Angeles city councilman with 10 counts, including embezzlement and perjury, on Tuesday in the latest criminal case to upend the scandal-plagued governing board of the nation’s second-largest city.Curren Price Jr faces five counts of embezzlement of government funds, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest, according to the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office.Price was charged for having a financial interest in projects that he voted on as a council member, and having the city pay nearly $34,000 in medical benefits for his now wife while he was still married to another woman, the Los Angeles county district attorney, George Gascón, said in a statement.Between 2019 and 2021, Price’s wife allegedly received payments totaling more than $150,000 from developers before Price voted to approve projects, according to Gascón’s statement. He also is accused of failing to list the money his wife received on government disclosure forms.“This alleged conduct undermines the integrity of our government and erodes the public’s trust in our elected officials,” Gascón said.Price called the charges “unwarranted”.In a letter to the Los Angeles city council president, Paul Krekorian, Price said he was stepping down from committee assignments and leadership responsibilities “while I navigate through the judicial system to defend my name”.“The last thing I want to do is be a distraction to the people’s business,” he wrote.The council and city government have been shaken by a series of recent scandals.In March, former Democratic city councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas – a one-time legislator, county supervisor and a fixture in local politics for decades – was found guilty in federal court of seven felonies, including conspiracy, bribery and fraud.Last year, a racism scandal that shook public trust in Los Angeles government triggered the resignations in October of then city council president Nury Martinez and a powerful labor leader, Ron Herrera.After an FBI investigation, two other former city council members pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in recent years.Former mayor Eric Garcetti, who left office in December, was shadowed by sexual harassment allegations against one of his former top aides.To residents, the cumulative effect “makes the whole body politic of LA look rotten, look illegal”, said Jaime Regalado, former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.At a time when the city is struggling with an out-of-control homeless crisis, crime, and soaring housing and rent costs, “it makes everything harder,” Regalado said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA criminal complaint said a consulting firm operated by Price’s wife received a series of payments from companies incorporated or co-owned by Thomas Safran & Associates, GTM Holdings/Works and GTM Holdings, before the councilman voted to approve funding for the companies’ projects.Emails seeking comment from those entities were not immediately returned on Tuesday evening.Price was first elected to the council in 2013 and currently serves as its president pro tempore. His district includes South Los Angeles and parts of the city’s downtown. His term is set to expire in 2026.Price, who is Black, has successfully navigated changing demographics in his district – which has become increasingly Latino – and is known for being attentive to communities that are diverse.The councilman had attended a city council meeting earlier on Tuesday.Mayor Karen Bass’s office said in a statement that she had not seen the charges but was “saddened by this news”.Price’s attorney, David Willingham, declined to comment, saying he had not seen a copy of the criminal complaint.The charges were first reported on Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times. More